Tim Thomas Traded to Islanders

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I feel bad for the Islander fans. This move is a joke. Not because its cap circumvention, which it is. But because it shows how uncommitted to putting a descent product on the ice ownership/management is. Nobody can blame the fans for the fact that place is empty most night. The product they put out blatantly sucks (although it has gotten slighly better this year), and there is no commitment from the owner to try and make it better.

That team is run so poorly, and is so cheap, they have been in a perpetual cycle of sh!t for the past 20 years. Is moving to Brooklyn, with a tiny arena that eliminates a large number of the highest priced seats in one end of the rink because it wasn't built for hockey, really going to make things better for that franchise? For their sake, I sure hope so, but I have my doubts.

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I feel bad for the Islander fans. This move is a joke. Not because its cap circumvention, which it is. But because it shows how uncommitted to putting a descent product on the ice ownership/management is. Nobody can blame the fans for the fact that place is empty most night. The product they put out blatantly sucks (although it has gotten slighly better this year), and there is no commitment from the owner to try and make it better.

That team is run so poorly, and is so cheap, they have been in a perpetual cycle of sh!t for the past 20 years. Is moving to Brooklyn, with a tiny arena that eliminates a large number of the highest priced seats in one end of the rink because it wasn't built for hockey, really going to make things better for that franchise? For their sake, I sure hope so, but I have my doubts.

I know people have been saying it for years, but the Islanders actually look to have a decent team in the next few years. Nothing mind-blowing, but they have a solid forward corps + Niederreiter, Nelson, and Strome who aren't in the NHL. Hamonic is a top pair D, MacDonald can take 2nd pair minutes, but that's kinda it - Visnovsky and Streit are in their late 30s - so they still have a need back there long-term. As long as they can get average goaltending they should be in the playoff races for the next few years.

Just because the NHL has a silly artificial line up to which teams have to spend, even if spending to that line makes the team by default unprofitable, don't blame the Islanders. They're actually on the right track here.

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It's not just the cap floor issue. It's everything with them. I remember Milbury saying a little while ago that he was forced by ownership to play certain young players he knew wasn't ready to be in the league because the owner demanded it as a result of financial issues. I think he also claimed that he was forced to trade Luongo so they could draft DiPietro because Luongo was getting too expensive.

Assuming what he is saying is true, mixed with the fact that they are always taking on players to reach the floor (Rolston, Vishnovsky, Thomas) knowing that those players will never be a productive member of the team, is what makes it so bad.

They are getting better by default. A few of their picks are turning into good players, but they should be the Blackhawks or Oilers (at least) by now with how bad they've been over the past 20 years, and they are still closer to Columbus than those 2 teams.

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The Islanders jettisoned a bad contract in the Rolston deal. They did not pick up Visnovsky with the intention of getting to the cap floor.

Charles Wang has made some terrible decisions, but he's faded into the background and I think Garth Snow is at least in the middle region of GMs in terms of creativity and smarts. I don't agree that the Islanders should be where the Hawks are - people like to overstate the effect of the Hawks' sucking, but Kane and Toews isn't that enormous of a coup when compared to the rest of the talent on that team.

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Not really, though. There is still a 5 million dollars in salary that should go directly to the players. Fake money fractions out as it is divied among many players. Does it still equate to 5 mil?

Thomas's cap hit was already bigger than his salary (cap hit 5M, salary 3M for 2012-13). And the $5M goes directly to players, that's how the system works. Either the players get a bump in their paychecks worth $X or they don't lose $Y amount to escrow - everything is accounted for.

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This *trade* doesn't cut into or give back to the players at all, what was happening with Thomas contract was going to happen whether he was on the Bruins or Islanders.IMO it's just cap circumvention, something they will fix in 8 years during the next lockout, or if starts to become too egregious they will patch it like Kovy.

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This *trade* doesn't cut into or give back to the players at all, what was happening with Thomas contract was going to happen whether he was on the Bruins or Islanders.IMO it's just cap circumvention, something they will fix in 8 years during the next lockout, or if starts to become too egregious they will patch it like Kovy.

The Thrashers did something similar years ago with Donald Brashear - they're not interested in fixing it. It's a rare circumstance and a consequence of a rule that for some reason the league still likes.

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I can't help but feel this is a type of cap circumvention, its clear what the intent is, to get to the floor, even though its known that Thomas isn't playing this year.....yes, im still butthurt about the kovy penalty.

I'll never reel good about our poor treatment because of that. Efforts were made to do it to the league's liking and when it was done we STILL got fined for circumvention! That just pisses me off, and that's the kind of troll Bettman is.